Streamline R&D With Convenient Cheese Ingredients

Cheese sauces add instant cachet to numerous applications. However, many manufacturers have little inclination to reinvent the cheese wheel, so to speak. Therefore, to streamline product development, Gamay created a range of ready-to-use cheese ingredients.

The company offers a variety of hot-fill, shelf-stable sauces packaged in portion-controlled pouches for use in meal kits. They come in several flavors, including Cheddar, Parmesan Alfredo and Asiago, each packaged in foil or poly laminate film, and available in sizes ranging from 1 to 9 oz. Gamay also created several natural cheese-sauce bases for cook-chill and freeze/thaw-stable applications. The stabilizing system used in each of the products varies based upon final customer application, says Omid Rahnavard, lab manager. Use of an instant starch facilitates quick, nocook sauce preparation.

The cheese-sauce bases were developed to cater to those looking for a base sauce to which they would then add their own seasoning, spices and flavorings, while diluting the product to their needed consistencythereby creating their own authentic customized culinary sauce, says Christie Goldsmith, R&D manager. She notes that available flavors include Cheddar, both mild and sharp American; Mexican, which includes jalapeño peppers; and an Italian three-cheese blend of Parmesan, Romano and Asiago.

Available liquid cheese concentrates carry a concentrated flavor profile. The liquid cheese concentrates were developed for use in aseptic or retort formulations where, because of the time-temperature abuse of these two systems, actual cheese content is kept at a minimum3% to 10% in most applications, says Goldsmith. Gamays liquid cheese concentrates are highly flavored process-cheese products, allowing the developer to add this in place of natural cheese with the added benefits of stronger flavor impact, as well as lower cost contribution to the finished sauce formulation.

Gamay also offers a full line of customized individually quick-frozen (IQF) cheese sauces, formed as blocks or as sticks, available in 40- to 50-lb. bag-in-boxes for industrial applications, as well as 5-lb. loaves for smaller applications. This format allows for easy storage. The IQF sauces quickly thaw for use with vegetables or frozen pasta dishes. Theyre suited to end-user microwave heating, without producing any burned or off notes.

And customized ingredients are always an option, notes Dawn More, account executive. As a whole, she says, Gamay specializes in customizing many of its products for customer applicationsbe it cost-driven, specific flavor requests or packaging specifications.

Gamay Foods 
2770 South 171st Street 
New Berlin, WI 53151 
Phone: 888/464-2629 
Website: www.gamayflavors.com